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Incidental learning of collocations through reading an academic text

  • Inés de la Viña ORCID logo EMAIL logo , Christina S. Kim ORCID logo and Gloria Chamorro ORCID logo
Published/Copyright: July 15, 2024
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
From the journal International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching Volume 63 Issue 4

Abstract

This study investigated the incidental learning of collocations in two reading modes (reading-only (RO), reading-while-listening (RWL)), taking into account additional learner- and collocation-related predictors of learning (e.g., congruency). An academic text was used, as this could be a useful source for vocabulary learning for university-level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Sixty-eight advanced Spanish EFL learners read a text containing 14 target collocations, in the RO or the RWL condition. Learning gains were measured in terms of form recall and form recognition. Results showed that collocations can be learnt incidentally from reading. While reading mode did not influence learning, congruency and prior vocabulary knowledge improved form recall, emphasising the importance of features specific to individual learners and collocations for vocabulary learning.

Keywords: academic reading; collocations; EFL; incidental learning; vocabulary knowledge
Corresponding author: Inés de la Viña, Departamento de Filologías Extranjeras y sus Lingüísticas, Facultad de Filología, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Paseo Senda del Rey 7, despacho 004, 28040 Madrid, Spain, E-mail:

Funding source: University of Kent

Award Identifier / Grant number: Vice Chancellor research scholarship

  1. Research ethics: Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study.

  2. Author contributions: The authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  3. Competing interests: The authors state no conflict of interest.

  4. Research funding: This study was supported by the graduate Vice Chancellor research funding from at the University of Kent (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001316). The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

  5. Data availability: The raw data can be obtained on request from the corresponding author.

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Supplementary Material

This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2023-0307).

Received: 2023-12-01
Accepted: 2024-06-07
Published Online: 2024-07-15
Published in Print: 2025-11-25

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Learning academic vocabulary through reading online news
  4. A Q methodological study into pre-service Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teachers’ mindsets about teaching competencies
  5. Assessing written production in L2 Mandarin Chinese: fluency and accuracy
  6. Machine translation as a form of feedback on L2 writing
  7. Acquisition of collocations under different glossing modalities and the mediating role of learners’ perceptual learning style
  8. Unpacking changing emotions in multiple contexts: idiodynamic study of college students’ academic emotions
  9. Exploring L2 learners’ processing of unknown words during subtitled viewing through self-reports
  10. Model text as corrective feedback in L2 writing: the role of working memory and vocabulary size
  11. Exploring learner-related variables in child collaborative writing: interaction mindset, willingness to communicate and proficiency
  12. Contributions of significant others to second language teacher well-being: a self-determination theory perspective
  13. The stone left unturned: boredom among young EFL learners
  14. The impact of out-of-school L2 input and interaction on adolescent classroom immersion and community-L2 learners’ L2 vocabulary: opportunities for interaction are key
  15. Promoting interaction and lowering speaking anxiety in an EMI course: a group dynamic assessment approach
  16. Relationship between learner creativity, task planning, and speaking performance in L2 narrative tasks
  17. Influencing factors of L2 writers’ engagement in an assessment as learning-focused context
  18. The cognitive-emotional dialectics in second language development: speech and co-speech gestures of Chinese learners of English
  19. Impact of task type and task complexity on negotiation of meaning in young learners of Chinese as a second language
  20. Effects of working memory and task type on syntactic complexity in EFL learners’ writing
  21. Assessing effects of source text complexity on L2 learners’ interpreting performance: a dependency-based approach
  22. Incidental learning of collocations through reading an academic text
  23. Listenership always matters: active listening ability in L2 business English paired speaking tasks
  24. Enhancing the processing advantage: two psycholinguistic investigations of formulaic expressions in Chinese as a second language
  25. The effect of form presentation mode and language learning aptitude on the learning burden and decay of L2 vocabulary knowledge
  26. Examining the impact of foreign language anxiety and language contact on oral proficiency: a study of Chinese as a second language learners
  27. The dynamics of changes in linguistic complexity and writing scores in timed argumentative writing among beginning-level EFL learners
  28. Perception of English semivowels by Japanese-speaking learners of English
  29. Corrigendum
  30. Corrigendum to: Development and validation of Questionnaire for Self-regulated Learning Writing Strategies (QSRLWS) for EFL learners
https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2023-0307
Keywords for this article
academic reading; collocations; EFL; incidental learning; vocabulary knowledge

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Learning academic vocabulary through reading online news
  4. A Q methodological study into pre-service Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) teachers’ mindsets about teaching competencies
  5. Assessing written production in L2 Mandarin Chinese: fluency and accuracy
  6. Machine translation as a form of feedback on L2 writing
  7. Acquisition of collocations under different glossing modalities and the mediating role of learners’ perceptual learning style
  8. Unpacking changing emotions in multiple contexts: idiodynamic study of college students’ academic emotions
  9. Exploring L2 learners’ processing of unknown words during subtitled viewing through self-reports
  10. Model text as corrective feedback in L2 writing: the role of working memory and vocabulary size
  11. Exploring learner-related variables in child collaborative writing: interaction mindset, willingness to communicate and proficiency
  12. Contributions of significant others to second language teacher well-being: a self-determination theory perspective
  13. The stone left unturned: boredom among young EFL learners
  14. The impact of out-of-school L2 input and interaction on adolescent classroom immersion and community-L2 learners’ L2 vocabulary: opportunities for interaction are key
  15. Promoting interaction and lowering speaking anxiety in an EMI course: a group dynamic assessment approach
  16. Relationship between learner creativity, task planning, and speaking performance in L2 narrative tasks
  17. Influencing factors of L2 writers’ engagement in an assessment as learning-focused context
  18. The cognitive-emotional dialectics in second language development: speech and co-speech gestures of Chinese learners of English
  19. Impact of task type and task complexity on negotiation of meaning in young learners of Chinese as a second language
  20. Effects of working memory and task type on syntactic complexity in EFL learners’ writing
  21. Assessing effects of source text complexity on L2 learners’ interpreting performance: a dependency-based approach
  22. Incidental learning of collocations through reading an academic text
  23. Listenership always matters: active listening ability in L2 business English paired speaking tasks
  24. Enhancing the processing advantage: two psycholinguistic investigations of formulaic expressions in Chinese as a second language
  25. The effect of form presentation mode and language learning aptitude on the learning burden and decay of L2 vocabulary knowledge
  26. Examining the impact of foreign language anxiety and language contact on oral proficiency: a study of Chinese as a second language learners
  27. The dynamics of changes in linguistic complexity and writing scores in timed argumentative writing among beginning-level EFL learners
  28. Perception of English semivowels by Japanese-speaking learners of English
  29. Corrigendum
  30. Corrigendum to: Development and validation of Questionnaire for Self-regulated Learning Writing Strategies (QSRLWS) for EFL learners
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